Posts Tagged ‘crosstour review’

Honda hopes a new name -- and some added features -- will save the sluggish-selling Crosstour.

Can a new name and a few added features salvage one of Honda’s slowest-selling models? Apparently, the Japanese maker is hoping so as it transforms last year’s Accord Crosstour into just the Honda Crosstour for 2011.

Even normally upbeat Honda executives, including top American John Mendel, openly acknowledge the quirky crossover hasn’t set the market afire. Honda sold just 1,477 last month, a 35% decline, with sales barely 11,500 for the full year. And lest anyone slough that off as a result of the Japanese product shortages, the Crosstour has been falling well short of expectations from the day it was launched.

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Clearly influenced by the sports car/crossover design theme that first appeared with the BMW X6, Honda actually launched two models, the Accord Crosstour for its mainstream brand and the even more slow-selling Acura ZDX, which found only 102 buyers last month.

Honda launches the 2010 CrossTour by September, targeting a niche between the CR-V and Pilot.

With the economy continuing to stumble and car sales languishing, new models like the Toyota Venza, a wagon – or, if you prefer, crossover-type vehicle — built off the Camry platform, haven’t exactly set the world on fire. That’s all the more so after Toyota shut down production last winter as part of a broad campaign to reduce inventories.

Nevertheless, Toyota executives remain relentlessly upbeat about how will it has done in the current market. Since the first of the year, Toyota has delivered 20,463, including more than 4,500 in June.

Now Honda, which often tends to mirror the moves of its chief Japanese competitor — more than its own executives ever want to admit — has confirmed plans for its own wagon-like crossover, this one to be built off the Accord platform.

Crossover Now!

Dubbed the Accord Crosstour, the all new CUV will go on-sale in the fall of 2009 as a 2010 model, according to officials from American Honda Motor Co., Inc., who are only belatedly confirming what had been widely suspected for months. (The spy shot shown here, provided by our own Brenda Priddy, first appeared on TheDetroitBureau.com more than a month ago.)